March 2009

Posted by Chubby under Everquest IIComments Off on Monday sluggish Monday’s

Ok so last night i did not do much of anything, i was finishing off a few quest in KJ and just gaining faction up and trying to collect as much trash as i could to sell and make some loot, in the process i gained another AA with out even trying..lol
Not much to report on this past monday just i was boried and no one was on in guild, didnt feel like a P.U.G (pick up group) so i just solo’d a bit, mainly stayed in KJ arounf the City of mist area gaining my faction up not to bad, it takes only 1 quest to get your faction up here but getting there is a problem. If you dont have the bird path up here then you have to fight your way thru Satherian Mobs and their Dog/wolf with Scales, or you can invis to the quest giver and then start wacking away. i did the quest in about 10 min had to kill 15 of the Satherians Overlords i think, then i repeated it a few tie just be be certain on the faction. these quest up give good loot too some of the quest rewards were too low for me or the stats were not good, and everything was no trade so i just sold to the vendor. not bad i made about 5 plat just in trash and another 2 plat on broker from the night before, i add 10 more things to the broker and cant wait to see what it brings in for me.

Today GU51 went out to the servers
I can not wait to get home tonight so i can play in some new lavastorm area, i see that they made a lvl 80 solo area woot woot and some solo Void shard instance cant wait to see if i can solo it or not. easy way to get some shards. Other than that i am really stoked to play tonight, my first plan was to Log into Runes of Magic and get some play time in the open Beta and test the waters to see what it will be like, but i just may push that off to thursday, never know i still may get an hour in for RoM really depends on what mood i am in tonight.

Players now have access to primary, secondary and ranged appearance slots.

The wield style (one-handed, two-handed, shield) of the weapons must match the weapons that are currently equipped.

Bristlebane’s Day

(3/31/2009 – 4/8/2009) Jesters, thieves, bards and fans of mischief are invited to enjoy the festivities that surround Bristlebane’s Day! You never know what laughs and pranks are to be found, during this enjoyable time of year. Celebrators are present in every home city, and the oddest of objects have been spotted in Antonica, The Commonlands, Darklight Wood, Timorous Deep and Greater Faydark! Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for special events occurring only on the highest of silly days, 4/1/2009!

Lavastorm

Lots of brand new content has been added in this classic zone. Almost all of the population has be re-tiered for solo players, with a new level 45 to 55 adventure quest line with the industrious…but rather insane Sootfoot goblins, and a new level 40-45 tradeskill quest line. Brand new void invaded areas also feature new level 80 solo quests. Additionally, a solo-able daily shard quest had been added as well as mount paths and additional teleporters to make traversing the zone much easier!

Shard Armor

A new set of shard armor is now available from merchants!

Threat Meter

Players can now see how much aggro they have generated towards NPC’s in combat.

A new UI element will display players’ aggro percentage for their current target or implied target.

Players with the most hate will also see the hate value for the player below them.

Players’ aggro value will also appear above an NPC’s head, just below their remaining power.

The aggro value displayed above an NPC’s head may be toggled off under Options -> User Interface -> Name and Chat Bubble

Ward of Elements

A brand new level 80 two-group raid instance has been added! This zone is balanced for players without a proliferation of raid gear, and should provide an exciting challenge to any group of 12! The first six bosses can be tackled in any order, and provide fantastic fabled loot with brand new armor sets upgraded from the tier 2 void shard sets, complete with new appearances! You can find it in Lavastorm beneath the Hollow Tower and Deep Forge.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Cleric

Sacrifice is now instant cast and recovery but will no longer be absorbed by wards.

Allied Prayers will trigger properly if the Cleric is casting.

ATREBE’S LABORATORY

Many NPC spells within Atrebe’s Laboratory: The Fabled City of Kor-sha will no longer target other NPCs.

GAMEPLAY

Xebnok and other charming mobs should no longer cause clients to crash.

Picking character advancement and training spells (i.e. Master II spells) will now attempt to add the spells to your hotbar and indicate where they are with spinning arrows.

Group members can now use the /invite command to request that the group leader invite a player to the group. Just type /invite <playername>

The entire group will no longer be zoned out of Scion of Ice when 1 person leaves.

Chests looted with NBG or Lotto looting options will now give the group 120 seconds to make their decisions.

Players that have completed the access quest to Trakanon’s Lair will now be able to zone directly to Trakanon without clearing Veeshan’s Peak.

Sarnak teleporter technology in Gorowyn has expedited transport from the base of the main lift to the residential area.

Gnomeland security R&D have created a tinkered banker prototype, which is now available for use. No warranty applies, use at own risk, no refunds, gnomeland security accepts no liability for injuries or loss incurred due to malfunction or spontaneous combustion.

A void shard now drops from the final boss of Obelisk of Ahkzul, two from the final boss of the Anchor of Bazzul, and three are present within the Palace of Ferzhul!

GUILD HALLS

The guild hall mender will now correctly remember the new coverage setting after it is changed.

Paying upkeep on a house or guild hall now requires confirmation.

The “Call to Guild Hall” spell to has been modified to have less of an impact on server performance when many players use it at once.

Amenities will now move with players when moving to a new guild hall.

Any amenities that are not allowed in the new guild hall will continue to be refunded to players’ escrow accounts. If the move results in having more amenities than allowed, players will not be able to move items until some amenities are removed.

Permissions for the Harvest Supply Depot amenity have been changed as follows:

Any player with access to the guild hall may deposit items into the depot.

Only players with Trustee access to the hall may withdraw items directly from the depot.

The ability to craft using items in the depot is defined using the permission level on the amenity tab.

ITEMS

Forgotten Ring of Souls had a higher bonus on it than was intended. It has been changed to 2 base spell damage and 2 spell crit.

The Paladin Voidbeam set’s 4-piece bonus has been changed.

The Ranger Flightrift set’s 2-piece bonus now lowers the reuse time of Focus Aim.

The Zealot’s Steel armor set is no longer sunshine yellow.

The Shadow Odyssey dirge set armor has had its chest and 2-piece set bonus swapped.

The Void Shard merchant in the Moors of Ykesha now offers weapons suitable for Brawlers.

Items collected from the ‘old’ Ethernaut Relics collection now apply to the ‘new’ Ethernaut Relics collection. The ‘old’ Ethernaut Relics collection has been deleted.

Set bonuses for Shadow Odyssey raid gear and some shard-purchased gear have been modified and improved.

Flightrift Leggings now have a ranged crit bonus instead of melee crit.

The High-Pressure Forged Breastplate awarded by Tertiary Gurowyn Riz’Din in the Timorous Deep can now be equipped by crusaders as well as warriors.

The delayed shipment Nagafen statues have finally arrived. Anyone who had /claimed their Nagafen at Rest item should now have a statue in place of the delivery crate.

The Thex Mallet can now be purchased from Shady Swashbuckler if you have completed the heritage quest.

Darkened Rapidity now adds +10 Deflection Chance to the fighter version of the Dark Mail Gauntlets.

The effect from the Talisman of the Ethernauts should now stack with similar effects, like Frenzy of the Dead and Adrenaline Rage.

The Tainted Ring of Anashti Sul should now proc Deflection Chance similar to its Shield Effectiveness.

The Signet of Vampiric Kind should now also proc Barrier on a successful deflection.

Many quest items in Moors of Ykesha have been fixed to no longer trigger procs.

Quest items for the Befallen missions will no longer trigger procs.

The Wantia Artisan’s Satchel and Meager Harvesting Bag no longer hold non-harvested raw items such as wolf fangs. Only items that are actually harvested can be placed in them.

MOORS OF YKESHA

Many parts of the solo population within Moors of Ykesha have been reduced in difficulty.

PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE

Multiple occurrences of Abstalius should no longer spawn in Palace of the Ancient One.

PVP

Players can no longer revive while their group is still engaged in PVP based combat.

The infamy system has been adjusted. Players no longer lose infamy when they die. However, their infamy will slowly decay over time. Also, a new title has been added.

QUESTS

Lord Byron and his cohorts should be much more accessible for updating quests in Stormhold.

You can now assist with Qho Augren’s harvesting obsession as you level up, starting at level 5 (adventurer or tradeskill).

City writs that previously sent adventurers into Lavastorm have been adjusted due to the changes to the Lavastorm population.

Some of the collection items that were previously only available through the Kunark Burynai have been made available again in certain zones.

RAIDS

All Shadow Odyssey Expansion raid bosses now have a chance at dropping master spells.

Some raid bosses in each zone now drop void shards! (2 per instance, except Zarrakon)

RUINS OF GUK

The Ruins of Guk: Halls of the Fallen, The Ruins of Guk: the Lower Corridors and Atrebe’s Laboratory: Fabled City of Kor-sha all have had some changes made. Most of the more undesirable spells have been removed from NPC’s and or are now dispellable.

SPELLS

Strike of the Ethernauts and similar type effects should now all stack with each other.

TRADESKILLS

The Far Seas Supply Division has learned of another mission where a group of talented tradeskillers may be sorely needed. Madria Varas will have details of the new mission once they are available.

Representative Purrla from the Far Seas Trading Company is seeking help from the cities’ tradeskill societies! Tradeskillers level 40+ may wish to assist.

Armorers, woodworkers, and jewelers have improved their recipes, and can now make improved versions of tradeskilled shields and secondary items. Old shields and secondary items that already exist will not be affected, only new ones created henceforth.

Tradeskillers with their epic earrings may soon find more red collectibles if they look in the right areas…

The “Tunare’s Gifts” volumes 1 through 5 and “Bartending for Sadists” recipe books are no longer limited in number of uses.

All armorer reaction events in the level 50 range should now result in a success round if successfully countered.

USER INTERFACE

Players can now drag equipment from their appearance slots to the macro window.

Fixed a bug where damage reduction info was not displayed correctly in the mitigation tooltip.

The raid window has a new ‘Advanced’ mode that will display effect icons for all members of the raid. To switch views, right-click the raid window.

A bug in the raid window sometimes causing users to not be drag-able has been fixed.

The carat in text boxes will no longer render if the EQII client doesn’t have focus.

UI Settings files are now stored in a new XML format. Existing INI files will be converted the first time a character is logged in.

Tooltips of icons in the collection window now look like regular item tooltips.

The quest journal can now be sorted by quest name.

Players may now specify key bindings for all 10 hotbars in the Options window under Controls->Hotbar Keys. Right-click a hotbar and choose “Hotbar Settings” to assign a key mapping.

The group window now displays a health bar for your group members’ pets.

The following modifications were made to UIScripting / UI Builder and are mainly of interest to the modding community:

UIScript now supports the following functions: int(), abs(), floor(), ceil()

Results of math operations in UIScript now only return the required precision instead of always forcing 3 decimal places.

Fixed a bug parsing negative floating-point numbers.

New Scripting events added: OnMove, OnSize, OnTextChanged.

The BackgroundEmpty image of a UIProgressbar will no longer render unless the progress value is zero.

Support has been added for a new UIColorStyle object. Any object property that accepts a color will now accept a reference to a UIColorStyle object.

Players can now press F2 to edit the name of an object in the TreeView

Players can press Enter or Escape while editing an object name to commit or cancel editing.

ZARRAKON’S ABYSSAL LAIR

The mark of attack spell associated with the Mystmerian Wraiths in Zarrakon’s lair no longer persist through death, but the wraiths recast it on newly resurrected opponents within 3 seconds, allowing them to resume fighting with their group.

Well Friday night the alliance raided Shard of Hate, We did fairly well we killed 3 of the 4 named in the general area with no problems, and cleared out alot of trash mobs and received some much needed loot. It was a fun time getting in there and learning the area, and seeing things that i have not seen before, Gained some Disco in this area and even gained an AA point from going here. it was a really fun time.

Saturday i didnt do much gaming , i was under the weather and didnt feel like logging in for one, i just could not stop sweating and coughing damn spring Flu bug. i took the kids to See Monsters Vs Aliens, Not a bad movie kids really enjoyed it but again i was just waiting for it to be over so i could lay on the couch. got home and found heaven on my couch, Zonked out after taking the wrong cold meds Night time instead of daytime and found that i was in a Slumber till 4am got up and staggered to bed.

Sunday i awoke to feel more miserable than Saturday made it to Walmart to do our grocery shopping before the church folk got there, was home by 1230pm and got a few things done around the house. logged into Eq2 to find alot of people in guild, we formed a quick group to goto CoA ( Crypt of Agony) to gain some AA for Jonna, Kendrea, Blackk, Sheldmirine (however you spell that Mya) , Alyse and Chubby that were in need of XP and AA. We did pretty good a few of the group members got a couple upgrades in armor, charms and weapons . we only had a few probs when we had Add’s pop when we were killing a couple names but other than that we did really good. I logged off around 530-6pm for dinner and family time and didnt get back in till almost 10pm not many were on in guild and i was sorta tired from being sick all weekend. i went to Kunzar jungle and did about 5 or 6 quest to up my reet faction and i earned around 6 plat from the turn ins and the trash that i sold, i gained a few adept I books that i put on broker so still waiting to see what i get from them. I Logged off around 1130pm again was not feeling up to playing so i went to bed.

Monday came with a streak of brgiht light (kids flipping the lights on) but i feel much better and plan on getting on tonight around 8pm and see if i can get a few shard zones going, i have go to the fact that i am going to need alot of shards in order to get the armor that i want for now untill i can get good enough and untill our raids take us to Vesheens Peak.

Well we had some general T5 raids listed to do just for fun to get some lvl 50+ folks involved in raiding. and we had a great turn out. Bownzer did a awsome job being our raid leader and is really patient with all of us.

Our first stop was in Commonlands Zeferns Tower to kill King Zalak. This went really well of course the higher level toon mentored down to our lower toons so we had a raid comprised of lvl 50 upto 60 and Chubby was in charge of the adds and bownzer was in charge of the King. All DPS was to be linked to me and once the adds were down, we were to assist Bownzer on the main named “King Zalak”. i had a blast we killed the adds in like less than a min and ran over to bownzer, it was funny i keep stealing his aggro on purpose just to see if i could keep it and i did for a coule seconds untill he stole it back..King went down in like a minute if not less. We got our loot and now we were off to Thundering Steeps.

2. Thundering Steeps – The Cove of Decay: Epic Angler- Well this was our next stop we decided to have a little competition between me and Bownzer so we split the raid into 2 separate raids i was in grp 2 and i took grp 4 of the orig. raid and her took 1 & 3. all i have to say is that this was bugged from the start they were able to log in and we kept getting a error saying we werent able to go in, then all of a sudden Silent clicked the door and Bam zone in commenced, i heard in our misfit alliance channel that the other raid grp was split into 2 separate instances and was not able to get the zone started. by this time we were in there and i took off running towards the mobs, now the mobs were whited out and not able to attack so i went for a swim and everyone followed , just when i was calling the fish in the water aggroed us along with the crabs and the named “Rognog” i graded all the aggro thank god for group aggro spell i have, and told them to heal me and DPS thru me, it was great the fish went flying, crabs were cracked and the Name came crashing down, before he fell he hit me with a knock back and i went flying across the zone…man was that fun.. Zoned out and rubbed it in Bownzers face that my raid group was better than his raid group because we finished the instance and he didn’t…LOL…Next stop the Ferrott

3. The Ferrott -Meeting of the Minds-The lair of Overlord Oxulius

We had to kill Borxx, Braxx, Brixx,Pkzwk Tzkr, & Overlord Oxulius, this went rather fast we were done in like 2 minutes killing all 5 of these.

4. Spirits of the Lost – The Temple of Cazic-Thule

this was bugged we could not get the instance to come up nothing to report here.

5. Antonica – Firemyst Gully: Shattered Stillness

Again this was bugged we could not get the zone to populate with the mobs that we needed or some of th raid was split off into a separate instance.

So that was it for our Raid we called it there, i wish we would of did a few more of the T5 raids like the Permafrost raids -Drayek’s Chamber, & Crypt of Vox. or the Lavastorm T5 Raid Commune of K’Dal in Maiden’s Gulch or the one in Zek, the Orcish Wastes – Orcish Mines. Oh well there is allways next time.

i had a great time getting these zones done, yes i am level 80 but i have never been in those instances and gained some much needed AA for going there and killing the bosses. Next i hope we do the T6 raids which has 7 Instances, 2 Contested Zones & 8 Contested mobs man i hope i could really use the AA on that.

We had almost 2 groups of Knights of Marr members in the raid so we had a good turn out and the rest was Stealth which they have more folks than us but with the 2 guilds allianced it always turns out well.

Well last night was my typical Tuesday night gaming, well i did log in late due to messing with ACT for about 2 hrs just trying to figure out this thing and figure the timing of my combat arts and spells…ahhh do they make a ACT for dummies manual i could really use it.

Well last night i wanted to get some more updates towards my epic (fabled) and i was already sitting in Butcherblock Mts so i went to the next step IRON FORGE East.. i had to speak to Brom Axeshadow or something similar, Now this next part of the quest is not for the animal lovers and i had a hard time with this myself, but i was to kill his cat Bryon on top of the bookcase to get my update, Now i have 2 cats and a dog, we would have 2 cats , a dog and 2 hermit crabs too but the damn hermit crabs didnt want to stick around and the moved into the pasture with the daisys…If ya know what i mean. But it was tough decision to make for a update on my epic, Yes i play a evil toon and this is part of being evil, but why must the developers of EQ2 put such content in this game, now i know that there is another quest out there too where you have to drown a sack of kittens, OK What the hell did the kittens to to the Devs anyways now that is 2 quest that you have to kill kittens…C’mon devs ya know kids play this game too right, what is this saying to our youth. I did it for the sake of my epic, i wasnt happy that i did but i did. i just feel that they could of came up with a better solution to get this NPC to talk that didnt involve kittens. So enought of my ranting on this subject.

after i got my quest update, the next step was to form a groub and head to sebilis and go deep in this area, but there was really no one on to go to this area, so instead Healyou asked me to goto Scion again and get 2 shards..Of course i said yes, i just simply love this zone and know it like the back of my hand because i have ran it so much. we died only 3 times durning the whole run, untill we came to the final boss at the begining, he killed us twice and one was not faid he had 11% and did a Single shot AOE that killed the entire grp…WTF he’s not suppose to do that or at least thats the first i have saw that out of 10 runs of Scion. the 3rd time we faced him we were bettered prepared, i conserved my mana, and hit him with the most damaging spells and taunts he only hit me with 1 AOE and then he was Down for good.

i love the AOE of this zone if you are not positioned just right you become a human Cannonball. its just so fun to see yourself fly across the room. So after we finished Scion AGAIN, i collect the additional shard and killed some leporads and skellys and other things just to get some trash to sell on the broker and vendor trash guy. made 2 plat from the run and the trash i picked up not bad, plus what i sold during the day, today so it was a good night.

Tonight we have our weekly raid, we are doing lvl 50+ raids 5 different T5 zones will be included in this tonight and i cant wait, i hope we goto some areas that i never had the chance to got so i can get some AA points and get chubby some more stats..wooohoo lets hope.

I have been looking at CRA as well just to see if i can get in some raids on my off nights to get better equiped and learn from others that have been raiding, i have been a member of CRA for about 2 years and never went on a raid with them yet, just never got really interested in it till the last couple of months, so well see where it leads too.

Yeah so just like the title says, is what i think of a monday. Its begining of a new work week of 8-5pm and gaming from 8pm-2am and i wonder why i am so tired durning the work week.

But last night was Slow, not many people in guild was on at first, but as soon as i logged in i got an Private message from an old friend Timpleton wanting to know if i wanted to do the DD, i was like sure why not i can go for 4 shards 2 from the DD, 1 in the chest in the zone and 1 from another quest =4 shards. However it was in the Abr. Labs in Fens and i have been here once and didnt get far, well same went for last night it didnt go very well, i did however make some new friends Jaleena nice girl talks alot but nice and one hell of a Monk she was out DPSing me all over the place, we left the DD and went to CoA and i told her that she can be the tank since she can do more damage and i’ll be off tank and grab aggro if she gets in trouble. went well we did not Die at all, the zone droped some good look for some lower level toons most was No-trade so i ust vendor trashed it and still came out with 3 Plat just in vendor trash, and made another 3 plat on the broker so far.I would diffently group with her again.

Tonight is tuesday, i dont know what is in store for this evening, i finally gained my faction with city of Jinsk in Kunzar jungle and bought my emerald for the epic, i also went and turned it in to Vasliy and then went back to Nek Forest to the instance, and got the update for the quest, now i am alomost finished with the quest, i think my next stop is back in selibis, or Barren sky area, i have to look and see where i am at on the epic but i do know i only have a couple more steps before i get my fabled epic.

Hopefully tonight we can get a shard grp going so i can get my brestplate or shoulders i dont want to get a full set just because so of the armor i have now is alot better than the T1 Shard armor and will lower my stats, but on the other hand i can always upgrade to the T2 armor and it still is not as goo as some of the armor i already have, i really want to goto Veeshan Peak and get the Excutioners Furious Armor set drops there, i think they are patterens that you take to JW at the docks and have the NPC craft them for you.going to see if i can get in some raids going to that area.

Scion of Ice is a really fun instance if you know what to expect, if you are a first timer to this zone it can be frustrating and amazing all at once.

Well Healyou and Chubby wanted to get a group together and run this zone again for the usuasl 2 shards, ( 1 from chest , & 1 from Quest), so we sent the calls out to guild to see if anyone wanted to join us and ew got Mezer & Jonna and we got Gildan and Nyskian from our raid Allaince Stealth.

Me and Healyou have been here several times and the last few time we struggled with some of the mobs, this time we started off great, of course i was the MT and Healou was my own personal healer..lol, but things were going good we were killing the mobs with ease and had only died once due to my lack of judgement on a pull. We started with the Left side first and just walked our way thru it we got down to the room where the Valkryie are and again i got alittle to close when going around the trap and pulled the mob too early, Not all members were in the room yet. once we revived and buffed up i gave the count down and we pulled the mobs from the center with no problems i gave a quick break in between pull just enough to get enough mana back , we cleared the ring event from the center and proceded to Arkhen & Zaza.

Now since we had 2 new people in the group thats never been to Scion before, we were giving instructions to Mezer and Jonna, which did a great job in the zone. So once we cleared the room up to Zaza and Arkhen we told Mezer to go ahead and let me know when he was Mezzing Arkhen so i can lay my rescue on Zaza and beat the hell out him. As i mentioned before this zone can be wonderful and deadly all wraped in one, the the 2 names grouped together there was no stopping the onslaught that they would lay upon us, so we stressed that we need the one mezzed and by no means let them join forces. So he pulls and Mez’s Arkhen and i gained the aggro on Zaza and proceeded to waylay on this named. At one point in the fight i lost aggro, i think Gildan absorbed my aggro and Zaza was on a rampage at this point my Rescue was down and i was Taunting with everything i had, group taunt, reg taunts, and my fav Sneering assult, and finally i gained the aggro back and Killed Zaza at this time i was at 75% Mana and grabbed Arkhen and he went down rather quickly, didnt lose aggro one time.

Durning the course of the night I was battling with Gildan over aggro, so i need to look at my specs and see if i can improve my hate gain and taunts so i am not losing aggro as much.

We made it thru the whole zone opened our chest and received our shard, and killed the final Boss in the begining area of the zone.

Over all it was a great night, Heal & I have only killed the final boss once before, we have tried several times but failed to beat him on the other runs of this zone.

So i want to thank all that attended this run of Scion last night and say lets get this say group for tonights run and afterwards do the next level, “The Phyircal” or something like that. We had a kick arse grp and want to see how far we can go, and what else we can Kill.